Q.E.D
Prop. [LXVIII] If men were born free, they would, so long
as they remained free, form no conception
of good and evil.
Proof.- (68:1) I call free him who is led solely by reason; he, therefore,
who is born free, and who remains free, has only adequate ideas; therefore
([lxiv] Coroll.) he has no conception of evil, or consequently (good and
evil being correlative) of good. Q.E.D.
Note.- (68:2) It is evident, from [iv] , that the hypothesis of this
Proposition is false and inconceivable, except in so far as we look
solely to the nature of man, or rather to God; not in so far as the
latter is infinite, but only in so far as he is the cause of man's
existence.
(68:3) This, and other matters which we have already proved, seem to have
been signified by Moses in the history of the first man. (4) For in that
narrative no other power of God is conceived, save that whereby he created
man, that is the power wherewith he provided solely for man's advantage;
it is stated that God forbade man, being free, to eat of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, and that, as soon as man should have eaten
of it, he would straightway fear death rather than desire to live.
(68:5) Further, it is written that when man had found a wife, who was
in entire harmony with his nature, he knew that there could be nothing
in nature which could be more useful to him; but that after he believed
the beasts to be like himself, he straightway began to imitate their
emotions (III:[xxvii] ), and to lose his freedom; this freedom was
afterwards recovered by the patriarchs, led by the spirit of Christ;
that is, by the idea of God, whereon alone it depends, that man may be
free, and desire for others the good which he desires for himself, as
we have shown above ([xxxii] ).
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